South Africa's Shakespeare and the Drama of Language and Identity

Adele Seeff  is an independent scholar and lecturer. From 1986 to 2011, she directed the Centre for Renaissance & Baroque Studies, University of Maryland, College Park. She established the conference series, “Attending to Early Modern Women,” co-edited seven volumes of conference proceedings, and co-founded the Early Modern Women Journal. Her research on Shakespeare and performance has appeared in academic journals and anthologies. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“Seeff follows the long and complicated search for South Africa’s Shakespeare, cataloging the efforts over two centuries of a multilingual, multiethnic group of theatre-makers to use Shakespeare to articulate different competing versions of South African-ness. What she finds along the way will interest South African theatre and performance scholars, Shakespeareans, and sociolinguists alike.” (Gibson Alessandro Cima, Theatre Journal, Vol. 72 (4), 2020)

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The African Theatre, Cape Town, 1801.- 3. The Shakespeare Diaspora.- 4. André Brink's Kinkels innie Kabel: Political Vision and Linguistic Virtuosity.- 5. John Kani as Othello at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg.- 6. Shakespeare in Mzansi.- 7. Afterword.